Share this with

The Greek defender is the Gunners’ third signing of the summer (Picture: Getty)

Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang has welcomed his old Borussia Dortmund teammate Sokratis Papastathopoulos to Arsenal after he completed a £16million move to the Emirates on Monday.

Unai Emery has been on the hunt for a new centre-back to bolster a backline that will be without Laurent Koscielny until next year, while skipper Per Mertesacker hung up his boots at the end of the season.

Sokratis was finally unveiled by the club on Monday, and becomes the third signing of Emery’s reign after Stephan Lichtsteiner and Bernd Leno.

Aubameyang, Mkhitaryan and Sokratis all joined Dortmund the same summer (Getty)

The Greek defender is already familiar with several of the Arsenal squad, having played alongside both Aubameyang and Henrikh Mkhitaryan at Dortmund.

Aubameyang is delighted to be reunited with another of his old teammates, and met Sokratis at Arsenal’s London Colney training ground.

A post shared by Aubameyang (@aubameyang97) on Jul 2, 2018 at 10:43am PDT

The pair posed for a picture on Instagram, with Aubameyang later uploading it along with a welcome message for the ‘Spartan’ that has joined Arsenal’s ranks.

Advertisement

Advertisement

Sokratis revealed that both Aubameyang and Mkhitaryan played a key role in convincing him to join the Gunners, calling him all the time.

He told the club’s official website: ‘I spoke [to them] a lot times. They said to me the best things about this club, that it is one big family and of course they also called me not every day but a lot of times telling me to come here.’

He continued: ‘It’s a little bit [strange to play with them again] but it’s also very beautiful that I’ve come to one team but I also have two players who I was together with for a lot of years. I know them both very well and I’m very happy.’